McGruber writes: In July, the American Public Transportation Association (www.apta.com/) recently released an informative report "Opportunity Cost of Inaction: High-Speed Rail and High Performance Passenger Rail in the United States" (http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/HPPR-Cost-of-Inaction.pdf).

The report addresses the initial investment and on-going cost of operation and maintenance of high-performance passenger rail in four of the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration-sanctioned regional networks — Northeast, Chicago Hub, California, and Northwest — over a 40-year period.

According to the report, the U.S. Census estimates the population will grow by more than 100 million people in the next 40 years. As the population grows, increased pressure will be placed on the nation’s already crumbling infrastructure. With a complementary high-speed rail service, this will help mitigate the cost of maintenance, replacement and the capacity expansion needs of airport runways, highways and roadways. In many cases expansion will be difficult because of the lack of land mass.
I am sure this report will put to rest all the concerns raised during the previous slashdot story, California Going Ahead With Bullet Train (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/27/0245250/california-going-ahead-with-bullet-train)